In about an hour (6:45 EST) I will be on ESPN Radio (The Fan 590) in Toronto. Specifically, I will be discussing the drafting of NFL quarterbacks with Bob McCown of Prime Time Sports. Everyone can listen live on-line.
In other news… I send out an e-mail to everyone who has volunteered to write for the Wages of Wins Journal. If you volunteered but did not get the e-mail, please let me know.
- DJ
Ty Ahmad-Taylor is the CEO of FanFeedr, a real-time sports service, and tweets under @tyahma. He was a journalist at the New York Times at the beginning of his career, and has been involved in media and technology for the last 15 years in Silicon Valley, Comcast, and MTV. He is a San Francisco native, but lives in New York, and thus “supports” the Warriors and the Knicks.
Parts of New York might be set on fire if the Knicks don’t land LeBron James and some mix of Chris Bosh/Dwyane Wade/even David Lee.
There are several other teams who are looking to also add some blend of the above players, as well, and thus the opportunity for the Knicks isn’t just about who can pay the most, but which players want to come to New York.
Joe Johnson has openly spoken of his affection for Gotham, and Carlos Boozer may be another piece. The two of them together, however, will very much feel like a lost opportunity, as the city has been all LeBron, all the time.
Table One: Top 15 at Each Position in 2009-10
However, viewed through the lens of Wins Produced (see Table One), the opportunities for the Knicks beyond LeBron and Wade are actually quite excellent; counter to standard thinking that has focused on points scored to the detriment of offensive and defensive efficiency. What follows is a look at the most efficient choices for the Knicks (not named LBJ and Dwyane). For clarity, and economic reality, I am not looking at RFA (restricted free-agents), just UFAs (unrestricted free-agents.) RFAs usually command a premium or weird contracts to dissuade their current team from matching.
An additional bit of background: the Knicks are proposing Toney Douglas at the point, Wilson Chandler at the 2/3, Danilo Gallinari at the 3, and that is pretty much it. They are, more likely than not, going to part ways with David Lee, their most efficient player, leaving them with Omar-the-Tent-Maker-sized holes at the 4 and 5, and shakiness at the point.
On the point guard front, the appetizers — to torture the metaphor introduced in the headline — aren’t very appetizing. UFAs include Nate Robinson, Steve Blake and Luke Ridnour. Of those, the latter is the most efficient with 5.4 wins produced and a 0.148 WP48 last year. He is certainly not worth maximum dollars. Next.
Though Knicks’ fans in the Tri-state area may collectively groan at the tweener that is Joe Johnson, especially given his latent awareness that there was a series with the Magic taking place this past week. Still, he is actually quite efficient. Like #3-in-the-league efficient in terms of Wins Produced. Like this will inspire-hate-mail-better-than-Kobe-efficient (Please just use one of the arguments posted here under “jbrett codes”). Jesus Shuttlesworth is not that far off, with 7.6 wins produced last year, but at that point, the Knicks should keep Chandler at the 2 and call it a day.
Small forward: after the King, it is slim pickings and the first UFA is Travis Outlaw. Yep, well, okay. Gallinari is the starter. Move on, nothing to see here. Outlaw was good two years ago and then caught Eddy Curry disease.
Like the missing ozone above Australia, you have the 4/5 next. There is Marcus Camby, who actually plays the 5, not the four, but he is going back to Portland. And #2 on the depth chart is Carlos Boozer, with 16.2 Wins Produced. That is 6.1 better than Amare Stoudemire. (Please just use one of the arguments posted here under “jbrett codes”).
But it is only 0.7 better than David Lee, who only has a $10MM cap hold for the Knicks. That is to say, replacing Lee with Boozer might only generate an additional win, and Lee is younger than Boozer (most players peak around 24 or 25 years of age, as we know from Stumbling on Wins.) The two are not directly comparable because Lee played against centers most of the time, and thus had some drag because of the greater average WP in the center category. We will get back to this option shortly.
What the Knicks should not do, under any circumstance, is try for Stoudemire (RFA). He is a full five wins less productive than either Lee or Boozer.
In the center category, you have Chris Bosh, who is actually a four. And then people too wince-inducing to consider. The Knicks are sort of stuck here, and Earl Barron is not the answer. They could continue to play Lee or Boozer out of position, but it just doesn’t work against teams with height/strength, or, heaven help you, both. What we should be clear about: Boozer or Lee are more productive than Bosh.
What this boils down to: if the Knicks can sign Boozer and Joe Johnson for $22MM combined, they can go over the cap to sign Lee (including his $10MM cap hold) to keep him in the fold. They will get destroyed by Orlando and the Lakers, but generally speaking, they will be much more competitive than they have been. And that will be true immediately, even though neither new player looks nor plays like BronBron or Wade.
If we take the worse case scenario (Boozer and Johnson won’t take haircuts to that level), the best option, in terms of Wins Produced and long-term productivity, and given what the Knicks have already, is to sign Boozer (who generated 6.2 more wins than Johnson). This gives them someone at the five/four to pair with Lee, and allows Douglas, Chandler and Gallinari to play at their “natural” positions.
Your groans are noted, but when the season starts, this is the best opportunity for the Knicks if they cannot land either of the top-two free agents and to improve their win totals. In terms of wins produced, re-signing Lee is a better option than almost all of the non-Dwayne Wade/James free agents.
- Ty Ahmad-Taylor
The WoW Journal Comments Policy
If the Cavaliers lose to Boston, does that mean LeBron goes to New York? The New York Daily News says yes. Darren Rovell – of CNBC – disagrees. Although no one knows what LeBron is really thinking about his impending free agency (at least, no one who is willing to talk to the media), Rovell’s arguments about the money involved has considerable merits. As Rovell notes
Yes, the Knicks will win more with LeBron (a point made in the Wall Street Journal a few days ago). But right now, the Cavaliers supporting cast trumps what the Knicks can offer (in other words, LeBron wins even more often in Cleveland). And if that doesn’t change, Rovell argues (and I agree) LeBron is better off playing for someone besides the Knicks. Certainly in terms of the emerging Chinese market (a point Rovell also makes), the money is probably going to flow to an NBA champion. It will not flow to a really good player toiling away for a less-than-great team in New York.
So maybe Knicks fans shouldn’t root for the Celtics. At this point, it looks like New Yorkers are sacrificing their beliefs as sports fans for a very unlikely potential return.
- DJ
Andres Alvarez says that the automated Wins Produced numbers will be on-line this Saturday. While we wait, Andres has updated his demo. As this demo reveals, the numbers Andres provides will include ADJ P48 (so one can do their own position adjustment) and team salaries (so one can evaluate how teams are spending their money).
As I noted a few days ago, now that these numbers are going to be available to everyone much of my work in this forum is finished. Specifically, the team reviews and evaluations that I have offered for the past four years can now be written by people who both understand Wins Produced and are actually fans of these teams (or at least are willing to pretend).
When I proposed this idea I had no idea how many people would be willing to step forward. As of this morning – much to my surprise and delight – 41 people have volunteered to begin writing in this forum. Among these people are professional writers, people with established blogs, and many long-time commentators. So once again — thanks to all these people — it looks like this forum is about to get much, much better.
Sometime in the next day or so I am going to work on my first task as chief editor of the Wages of Win Journal. Specifically I am going to send out an e-mail to everyone who has volunteered. This e-mail will detail how I think this should work. If you have volunteered and you do not get this e-mail by Friday, please let me know.
- DJ
P.S. By the way, this doesn’t mean I am not writing here anymore. I am just not going to be writing as much.
Last week I revealed that thanks to Andres Alvarez, the Wins Produced calculation has been automated. Consequently – as I noted last Friday – it is now possible for more people to take these numbers and tell stories. So far, 34 people have volunteered to start writing these stories. And that means the number of voices you are about to hear in this forum is going to expand dramatically (we will work out the details of all this sometime this week).
The numbers – as Andres noted yesterday in the comments – will not be available until next Saturday. So this week we are still stuck with just my voice. And that voice is going to spend today talking about the All-NBA team.
Reviewing the All-NBA Team
Each year the media makes its selections. Some of these choices are quite obvious. LeBron James and Kevin Durant — by almost any measure — rank among the very best players in the game in 2009-10. Some of the other choices, though, seem to reflect a very common theme. Yes, let’s all say it together: Scorers are overvalued.
Here are the top five players in the NBA in points scored per game (PPG) in 2009-10:
Kevin Durant: 30.1 PPG
LeBron James: 29.7 PPG
Carmelo Anthony: 28.2 PPG
Kobe Bryant: 27.0 PPG
Dwyane Wade: 26.6 PPG
Each of these players – with the exception of Melo – was named to the All-NBA first team. And Melo was named to the All-NBA second team.
Now scoring is not the only factor the media considers. Playing for a winning team also helps. The productivity of an individual player, though, is not captured by simply noting how many points the player scores and whether or not his team tends to win. It helps to separate the player from his teammates by focusing on how all the player’s individual actions impact team wins. In other words, it helps to look at Wins Produced (at least, that is the argument in this forum).
Such a look is provided in Table One, where the Top 15 players at each position is listed.
Table One: Top 15 at Each Position in 2009-10
As one can see, the media’s evaluations and Wins Produced are not entirely consistent. A list of the top six guards does include Wade, Steve Nash and Deron Williams. Jason Kidd, Rajon Rondo, and Manu Ginobili, though, did not receive enough consideration to displace Kobe, Joe Johnson, or Brandon Roy.
Turning to the forwards, again a person who believed Wins Produced (like me) can’t quibble with the selections of LeBron and Durant. And Tim Duncan was also a good choice; although I think Duncan spent quite a bit of time at center this year (more on position assignment in a moment). Anthony, Stoudemire (who I think spent more time at forward, although as I note, one can disagree with this notion), and Nowitzki, though, could have been replaced by Gerald Wallace, Marcus Camby, Carlos Boozer, and Lamar Odom.
At center the media and Wins Produced agree on Dwight Howard. David Lee, though, could have received more consideration than Andrew Bogut. Of course, it is possible that Lee was considered a forward by the media.
When we look at minutes played, though, it does appear that Lee was a center. But as I have noted in the past, position assignments are somewhat arbitrary. Yes, power forwards and centers are clearly different from point guards and shooting guards. Hence there is a need to consider position in evaluating a player. Whether or not a player is a center or power forward, though, may be in the eye of the beholder (or best left to the designation of the team).
Calculating Wins Produced
And that returns me to the subject of Wins Produced. This model was explained in The Wages of Wins. It was also explained in an article I published in 2008 (with details reviewed in other articles, some published much earlier) as well as in Stumbling on Wins. And back in 2007 I created a website to illustrate this measurement (a website linked to at stumblingonwins.com).
This website reviews the steps one follows in calculating WP48 [steps initially reviewed in the above publications]. As people who have reviewed these steps know, at the step just prior to reaching WP48 one calculates Adjusted Production per 48 minutes [ADJ P48]. This number considers all the player’s box score statistics (weighted in terms of wins), as well as the adjustments for team defensive variables and the teammates’ production of blocked shots and assists. In other words, ADJ P48 is everything except the position adjustment.
The position adjustment involves subtracting the average ADJ P48 at a player’s position from the player’s ADJ P48. And then 0.099 – the average player’s production of wins per 48 minutes – is added back in.
For example, Rajon Rondo posted a 0.439 ADJ P48. An average point guard posts a 0.263 mark. Given these two figures, Rondo’s WP48 is calculated as follows:
Rondo’s WP48 = 0.439 – 0.263 + 0.099 = 0.275
To repeat the same calculation for any player all one needs is the player’s ADJ P48 and the average ADJ P48 at each position. Given how I allocate players across positions, here are my position averages for 2009-10.
Center: 0.433
Power Forward: 0.371
Small Forward: 0.280
Shooting Guards: 0.228
Point Guards: 0.263
With these values in hand – and the corresponding ADJ P48 for each player – anyone can see what a player’s WP48 would be at any position.
Again, all of this has been detailed in the above books, articles, and websites. But I thought it might be useful to remind everyone of these steps as they start to think about writing about NBA players from the perspective of Wins Produced.
Once Again, jbrett’s Coded Responses
Such writings – as we have seen across the past few years – can generate some negative reactions. Last year – in discussing the 2009 All-NBA teams – I repeated something originally noted by jbrett in the comments section. As jbrett observed, it appears that a number of comments offered in this forum are repetitive. Consequently, we might see a gain in efficiency by assigning letters to the comments that most frequently appear.
Hopefully everyone will once again find jbrett’s observation as funny as I did (and if what he posted last year isn’t funny enough, jbrett and I have added to this list for this year).
Again, here is what jbrett said last year (with a bit of updating):
It seems to me your blog could benefit from posting, at the beginning of each Comments section, a list of time-saving conventions for the new or un-industrious poster. I only found it a few months ago; I spent a long time reading the older articles, and eventually I bought the book. This seemed the sensible approach, though, judging from the tone of many of the comments left, not the favored one. For the benefit of the many posters who consider this site homework-optional, I submit the following list of generic positions that NEED NOT EVER BE ELABORATED UPON EVEN ONE MORE TIME:
A. I have little or no training in statistics (me, for one)
B. Obviously, any metric that says Player A (let’s say, oh, Jermaine O’Neal) is not as good as Player B (how about, um, David Lee) is clearly flawed
C. Anyone who’s ever watched a game can see that Superstar A (Allen Iverson, anyone?) is ten times the player that Serviceable Role Player B (Chauncey Billups, maybe–or how about Andre Miller?) will ever be
D. Superstar A and his ilk cannot be quantified in the same way as mortal players can; they only shoot 42 percent from the field and 28 percent from 3-point range because their teammates DEMAND they do so, by leaving them with the tough shots at the end of the 24-second clock
(See how much space that one will save, when all you have to type is ‘D’?)
E. My friend/ brother-in-law’s boss/ opinionated alter-ego hasn’t read or studied your work, but I told him the results say Mike Miller is way better the Richard Jefferson OR Rip Hamilton, and he says you’re clearly deluded
F. I haven’t read THE WAGES OF WINS or STUMBLING ON WINS, nor am I likely to, and as a result I will begin by gainsaying basic tenets of the book
G. I read your books, and I say “Nunh-unh.”
Okay, here are some new comments for this year:
H.“Marcus Camby?!!!! Sure–go ahead and put 5 Cambys on the floor, and see how many games you win.”
I. “It’s just preposterous to try to define the value of any player’s contributions with a single statistic; therefore, anyone who attempts to do so (or anyone who enables that misguided wretch thru positive feedback or affirmation) is by definition not worthy of a scathing criticism, or even a haughty dismissal. I can’t believe I visit this blog ten times a week, I hold it in such disdain.”
(OK, that one might be a bit long-winded even for me.)
J. “These measurements are largely irrelevant because they measure only what a player has actually DONE, and not what he WOULD be able to do if he had better coaching and were playing a different position on a different team in a universe with different laws of physics where I, ZOD, were the UNDISPUTED MASTER OF ALL!”
And here are some new – more geeky – comments (one of these from DJ).
K. I saw that someone regressed their model (i.e. adjusted plus-minus or APM) on your model and this devastating and damning test (it is important you use the words “devastating” and “damning”) proves that your model is wrong. I hold this belief because 1) I am able to ignore the fact it is not clear which model is being tested, 2) I am able to ignore the obvious shortcomings APM (very inconsistent over time, most player evaluations are statistically insignificant), 3) I really have no idea how one would actually evaluate an empirical model.
L. All you’re doing is arbitrarily dividing up the team’s wins amongst the players, then making a team adjustment to hide any discrepancies. I can say this because I never read the books or the underlying empirical articles. I have read many “experts” on the Internet (and you know they are “experts” because they said so).
M. “A correlation of 0.94? Clearly that isn’t possible; therefore, you must not really be measuring anything new or unique.”
N. “Unless and until we are able to tabulate every single act that can conceivably occur on the court, and calculate their relative value in terms of wins, the metric you present here is either so incomplete as to be completely useless or hopelessly skewed and misleading.”
I’ll stop there–but, obviously, as other arguments become hackneyed, they can be assigned the next letter. Think how much easier it will be to find the genuinely interesting discussion when the endless repetitive jabber is distilled to a handful of letters one can note and skip past. It seems like an idea whose time has come. Any thoughts?
- DJ
The WoW Journal Comments Policy
Our research on the NBA was summarized HERE.
The Technical Notes at wagesofwins.com provides substantially more information on the published research behind Wins Produced and Win Score
Wins Produced, Win Score, and PAWSmin are also discussed in the following posts:
Simple Models of Player Performance
What Wins Produced Says and What It Does Not Say
Introducing PAWSmin — and a Defense of Box Score Statistics
Finally, A Guide to Evaluating Models contains useful hints on how to interpret and evaluate statistical models.